


Look Around, It's You I Can't Replace

by Fickle_Obsessions



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Epic Friendship, Fix-It, Light Angst, Light Hair Pulling, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Stalking, but light well meant stalking, light humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 04:09:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6455071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fickle_Obsessions/pseuds/Fickle_Obsessions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt handles his separation from Foggy after the breakup of Nelson and Murdock a bit less well than he anticipated. As in he doesn't really handle it at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look Around, It's You I Can't Replace

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't intend to write this really but once I did I couldn't stop. The first half is a humble homage to the longing in the [great](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6361714) [fix-it fics](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6401797) I've read and loved. The second half, I'll admit is just pure the bread and butter of Matt and Foggy being best fucking friends and also best friends fucking. Full frontal friendship porn. As a result a few things about where Season 2 left off are glossed over. Most glaringly, Elektra. I'm sorry about that. And for the purposes of this story please assume that Karen said "Thanks for sharing, but I don't have time for this," after Matt told his secret.
> 
> Deepest and most heartfelt thanks to [Fabella](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fabella/profile) for a marvelous beta. Her suggestions improved every part of this fic.

Matt doesn’t know what he thought would happen, but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t standing on the roof of a building in the middle of the night straining to hear the sound of his best friend who, oblivious to his presence, is moving around in an apartment four floors below.

That’s not technically true. Matt knows what he thought would happen. He thought that if he cut all of the ties that bound him and Foggy together that it would hurt. Hurt maybe as bad as anything he’d done to himself yet. But it would get better. He knows from personal experience that wounds heal, bones mend, and losses -- even devastating, gutting losses -- dull over time.

He knew it would suck for a long time, but that was the burden he’d chosen and he would bear it. Eventually he’d wake up one day and it wouldn’t hurt quite so much, because he’d be getting used to it. It would become a part of him, and he would learn to compensate for it. 

And it would be worth it because he’d know Foggy was safe.

So yeah, he knew what he thought would happen. But for the life of him Matt didn’t know _how_ he thought it would happen.

If he were another person entirely, sure, Matt might be able to wake up every day and assume that Foggy was okay. He wouldn’t worry about it until he had good reason to worry about it.

Matt is not that kind of person. Matt is not someone who assumes that things will be all right until proven otherwise. He’s the kind of crazy person who puts on a mask and goes out into the night and makes damn well sure that they will. 

He hears that last sentence in Foggy’s voice, an accusation. Matt has to pull the brake on his thoughts until he can close that box of memories up again before the voice conjures up the heartbeat, conjures up the shape and sturdiness of his elbow and all the other remembered things about Foggy that Matt can make appear if he lets them.

It’s a good time to start moving. Matt leaves Foggy's building behind and starts looking around Hell's Kitchen for his kind of trouble.

The point is when they were still friends Matt had almost daily proof that Foggy was fine, regular and expected. He saw Foggy in the morning, pulled ten or twelve hour days usually in his company. If not, they were checking in with each other about court delays and insane lines. After all that he might still wrap up the evening with Foggy at Josie’s. Hours and hours every day of knowing, knowing for _sure_ , that Foggy was okay and so he never thought about it, didn’t ever have to think about it.

If that thought -- is he okay? -- had gripped Matt out of nowhere as it might now and again in someone as morbid as he is, he could always dismiss it. Because if something were wrong, he would know. He’d be told. They were each other’s emergency contact. Had been since the day they’d sat in a bare conference room and filled out the necessary forms to intern at Landman and Zack.

(Foggy had filled out both. Landman and Zack, apparently never having conceived of a blind intern, before had no braille forms. 

“I’m putting me down as your emergency contact,” Foggy had just announced suddenly.

“You don’t have to-”

But Foggy hadn’t let him finish, “Nope. None of that. And anyway you’re mine so that’s just fair.”

“You don’t want your parents?” Matt didn’t have anyone else to put there, but Foggy didn’t need to pretend like there wasn’t anyone else who would help.

“Matt, my parents live in New Rochelle now. If they were called they’d just have to call you and say you’re in charge until they can get here on the train. Now instead you can call them and tell them you’ve got it all under control.”

Matt had sat back against his chair, “You’re putting an awful lot of trust into someone that can’t fill out non-braille forms on their own.” 

Foggy had laughed. It’d echoed all around the bare walls of the conference room and made Matt’s world on fire burn a little brighter. 

“Absolute trust, buddy. Perfect and complete.”) 

After that each new form just got the same treatment. Why not? So it went, at the doctor’s office, on their feeble health insurance policies that barely covered anything. Even when applying for credit, they listed each other as references.

So when he was struck with some random fear of all the stupid, terrible things that could happen to the people he cared about, Matt could think, _if something happened to Foggy, I’d be first to get the call. No call, no trouble. I’ll see him in the morning._ Done. He could move onto other business on the “what will strike random dread in the heart of Matt Murdock at 4am?” agenda.

He’s not going to see Foggy in the morning. Not anymore. The constant checking-in that he had gotten used to, that he apparently utterly relied upon was gone. And he’d been the one to say it should stop. 

“You’d be better off without me,” in fact, were more or less the words he’d used.

Like a damned fool.

Because Foggy is almost definitely better off without Matt. He is getting all the things he deserves: a steady income, a new apartment, new coworkers who can befriend him in nice uncomplicated ways, untroubled sleep at night. All of it. 

Hopefully. Matt wants that for him with almost everything he’s got.

But if not, suggests whatever part of him sets the nightly agenda of questions and accusations. If not, how would Matt even find out? From Foggy’s parents if they thought to call him when they'd have better things to think about? From Brett, if the police were involved and if he thought Matt deserved to know even now? Hearing it on the news?

For the first time since they met, Matt doesn’t know, can’t know, maybe won't ever know when Foggy’s in danger, when he's _hurt._

So he does what any crazy person who cannot leave well enough alone would do.

He obsesses about it.

And engages in some light, very light, stalking.

Not real stalking. Not the kind of thing that Matt would lay down a beating on another person for doing. He just--

finds where Foggy is living now and--

goes by every night.

He doesn’t linger. He doesn’t listen long. He just includes it in his rounds. It’s a cursory check. Lights and TV on? Foggy clinking glasses together as he loads the dishwasher? Great. Keep moving Murdock. It takes seconds but it helps. It helps a lot. He starts his days more often than not knowing, knowing for _sure,_ that Foggy was up and moving just a few hours ago. He sleeps better, hit with a lot less random dread he can't dispel. Nowhere near zero, but less.

All he can do now is wait and get used to that devastating, gutting loss. 

 

Most nights Foggy is alone, one body making noise in an apartment that, from the sound of it at least, is slowly filling up with things. The noise from the TV used to be able bounce off the ceiling and bare walls, but it starts to encounter more and more surfaces, a bigger couch, a rug, something like a desk or a table. Foggy is settling down.

He’s not always alone. Which is fine, because Matt just checks that the other person is calm and non-threatening. 

Seconds. He allows himself just seconds. The shorter the time the easier to justify that he's done nothing wrong. 

Seconds are all it takes to identify people he already knows: Marci, Karen, Foggy’s parents. He doesn't puzzle out the strangers, doesn't wonder about them if they sound reasonable, safe. He’s just glad that Foggy’s not alone all the time. A steady income, a new apartment, friendly coworkers, untroubled sleep at night, and yeah, a girl, a guy. Anyone who can be the person Foggy needs. 

If Foggy starts seeing someone regularly, Matt will know. The voice will become familiar even though he’ll try to forget it.

So far it hasn’t been the same stranger twice.

 

“I can only be so nice,” Marci says one night as Matt passes by. He doesn’t mean to do it but he stops, for the first time, to listen. 

There’s a long moment of relative silence before Foggy sighs, “Yeah, I know.” 

And the thing is he sounds like he really does know. Like he understands the limits of Marci’s ability to stop being sharp and ambitious, to not dig her finger into any soft spot she finds. She cares about Foggy, Matt knows that she does, but she just doesn’t have many milk and cookie nights (whiskey and cookies nights, really) in her. She can’t suddenly create more and Foggy _knows_ that. Apparently.

Something clicks about Foggy for Matt that never did before. Clicks hard enough that he has to sit down a moment and think about it: the way Foggy chooses people like Marci. Like Matt. Maybe it was just a weakness for opinionated, single minded fighters with “m” names. But still. Foggy’s a more active participant in the process then Matt had ever thought before.

He doesn’t listen to Marci kiss Foggy goodbye. He was thinking too hard, and no one could ever prove otherwise. 

 

The problem is he doesn’t get used to it. 

Actually it gets worse.

Really everything gets worse. 

So Matt’s light, barely even stalking becomes a little more morally grey. 

He stops coming at the start of the night when Foggy is awake and starts resting nearby at the end of the night when Foggy is asleep. Well sometimes Foggy is really asleep, sometimes he’s just waiting for it to come. Matt has some bad nights, some big hits. He doesn't just jog across the roof. He finds a place on the roof, and sets his senses free, leaves behind his tired, unhappy, unwilling body to find the steady inhale and exhale of Foggy’s breath. Foggy always sounds calm. Peaceful. Safe behind locked doors and windows in a bed with a comforter thick and heavy enough that it muffles the sound of Foggy turning in his sleep.

Then he pulls it back. Feels all the aches and pains, the torn skin, the forming bruise. And he thinks about what Fisk said in the prison, Fisk saying Foggy’s full name, first, middle, last like three shots to Matt’s gut. And he thinks about Elektra, the day she died, how that felt. 

He doesn’t, however, think of the day Foggy was shot. He figures out pretty quickly that if he does that he’ll panic. The dread he can't control and can't abide will come on too strong and he’ll want to do exactly what he’s supposed to be talking himself out of doing. 

Matt begins to form the opinion that he might have fucked up. Probably a lot worse than previously thought.

 

Matt’s been getting more than enough evidence lately to prove that the common course of events in his life is to first try something, then be surprised when it catches fire, then try to put out that fire without having even a bucket of water nearby. Accordingly, he gets distracted by one of those fires, a bigger one than usual, and doesn’t check on Foggy for an unprecedented streak of six days in a row.

It feels like a breakthrough. One that just took a lot longer than he thought it would. But he assumes he’s getting used to Foggy not being around. 

Matt tries to feel relieved. 

Once the main fire and all the minor bit-player embers are finally out, Matt sleeps for a day and a half. He goes down at five a.m. Monday morning and wakes up Tuesday just as the sun is going down. He has to get his phone to read the date to him twice. He thinks he might have gotten up now and again in the middle, but he can’t fully remember it. Either way he’s definitely lost a pretty big chunk of time. Not great.

Matt’s beat up, hungry, thirsty, disoriented, and _still_ exhausted. He has to work his way through the most manageable needs first. He takes four aspirin with two glasses of water, and orders delivery. While he waits for it goes through the messages on his phone. 

He has some clients that are not thrilled. Which is not surprising. Most people don’t really put “disappears for two days” high on their list of desired traits in their defense lawyer. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow, trying to convince them to keep him on. 

A delivery man knocks on his door with two orders of chicken and broccoli. Matt eats one order and then the other sitting on his couch and burning through the work he should have been doing while he was trying hibernation on for size. Hours of reading and making notes into his recorder. He makes a list of the people he needs to meet with tomorrow. It's long.

His phone tells him it’s three in the morning when he’s done with the bulk of it. He’s not tired enough to sleep, and a little afraid of what would happen if he tried. Staying up is pretty much his best option at this point. 

He turns his face to the window, and listens. The city isn’t quiet, it isn’t ever silent, but everyone in his building is asleep except for the superintendent on his night shift. He’s listening to a soccer game being played halfway around the world. Along the block there isn’t much more sign of life that Matt can sense. The buildings sound more alive than the people inside them, filling the night with the whine of HVAC units and the buzz of fluorescent lights. In comparison any night owls still awake are whispers as they calmly attend to whatever keeps them up at night.

Matt starts to feel itchy, like even just feeling the air around him is too much. He can’t go out again, not tonight. The cons are stacked too high: the work he needs to finish tomorrow when he can make calls, the apologies he needs to make, the appointments, the fact that he doesn’t have the full range of motion on his dominant shoulder. The only pro is that he wouldn’t have to sit here alone and wait for the sun to rise. 

He can’t go out, not as the Daredevil. But they make all-night bodegas for a reason and they sell orange juice, bread, and other things that normal people tend to have in their houses. Out in the street whenever he thinks to tap his cane the sound bounces all the way down the block without finding another person walking along. 

Matt wishes there was someone beside him. 

Foggy, his mind unhelpfully supplies. He wishes he was next to Foggy, holding onto his elbow on the off chance someone came across them, listening to him complain about how late it is.

Matt imagines Foggy’s voice -- “Beauty sleep, buddy, have you heard of it? This hair doesn’t just happen. It takes time and effort” -- and whatever cinder he thought was cool and dead after six days of neglect reignites. Matt gets hit with the full force of the backdraft.

He walks past the bodega, faster and faster until he’s standing in front of Foggy’s building. He’s panting. Did he run? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He’s too busy sifting through the sound of a whole building, a hundred people all living behind the same brick facade but he’s only listened to one of them breathe for hours and hours at a time. For years.

Three floors up above him, Foggy is asleep. 

He’s snoring actually, and there’s just a little bit of a wet rasp on his inhale. He’s getting over a cold. Six days and the worst that happened to Foggy is a case of the sniffles. 

Matt’s panic loosens its grip a little around his ribs. He feels like he can breathe again, especially when he matches it to Foggy’s rhythm. 

So yeah, not much of a breakthrough.

 

It would make sense that Matt unexpectedly finds himself at the courthouse at the same time as Foggy. In fact it’s definitely something he should have anticipated but it’s been more than a few months and it hasn’t happened yet. He’d maybe gotten a bit complacent about checking to court schedules so he's completely unprepared to round a corner and have Foggy at the end of the hall. Matt briefly wishes Foggy still didn’t know everything he could sense. It would have been a convenient to just serenely pass by like he just wasn’t at all aware that Foggy was there. 

He is aware, so very aware. This is the closest they’ve been and with the fewest barriers between them in a long time. Matt doesn’t recognize the smell or the sound of any of the clothes Foggy’s wearing. It’s a new suit, something fitting for an associate on a partner track at a big firm. But that’s still the same worn leather satchel, Foggy hasn’t traded that up. Matt can still smell the sriracha stain he knows is hidden on the underside of the flap if he tries. He inhales again and that’s the usual cocktail of Foggy’s products, and his natural scent under that. That’s his heartbeat, his breathing. All of it stronger and more present than they’ve been in months and Matt’s suddenly lightheaded.

Foggy takes a deep breath when he sees Matt. Comes even closer. “Hi.”

Matt’s had a lot of experience appearing casual in a crisis. He says only “Hey,” in response but it’s a good one. 

A nice casual hey followed by a beat of completely unfamiliar awkward silence because Matt doesn’t know what to say. To _Foggy._

Foggy, of course, doesn’t panic at the thought of having to engage in small talk. “Here for a trial?”

“No, actually. Avoiding one. Plea deal.”

Foggy tips his head to one side, confused. The blunt edges of his hair brush against his suit -- it must be time for a haircut. “You actually took a deal?” 

“Well my client was guilty so.” Matt realizes he is twisting his cane back and forth between his thumb and forefinger, and grips it to stop from fidgeting. “But it’s for a good reason. The right one. I wanted to make sure that was taken into account.”

Foggy considers that for a moment, then Matt asks, “What about you?” 

He waves his hand through the air, dismissive. “Just assisting. The case is only tangentially related to the kind of weirdness our firm specializes in.”

Matt hears the words ‘our firm’ and has to fight to keep the neutral expression on his face. It’s a distance he’s never really felt before. Our alma mater, our dorm room, our internship, our neighborhood, our favorite haunts, our firm, always used to mean his and Foggy’s both. 

Not this time. 

Foggy continues. “But these cases have a tendency to surprise you with weirdness and Jeri wanted me in the room if that happened.” 

Matt notes that it’s wry, the way Foggy mentions working with people with unexpected abilities. He sounds more comfortable with the concept than he did before Matt tried to burn his bridges and wasn’t at all surprised when they caught fire. 

A moment later he realizes he’s let the conversation stall. Foggy’s waiting. 

“I’m glad you’re doing well there,” Matt says. It sounds off to his own ears. 

It must sound off to Foggy’s too, because his breath pops, a hard, unhappy exhale against lips pressed together. “All right, well. See you around.” 

Foggy walks away, brisk steps echoing between the stone floor and plaster ceiling. Matt stands there listening to every hollow sounding knock, thinking in time with them, _don’t, don’t, don’t._

 

That night Matt takes his five minutes to hear Foggy’s breathing, and Foggy’s not asleep. He’s taking shallow, measured breaths like he’s working through a particularly tough problem. It’s late, too late, Foggy should really leave it for the morning. 

“Matt,” Foggy says. Not in some pained whisper to himself, but like Matt is there in the same room with him. Like Foggy can see him plain as day. But he can’t, it’s impossible. Matt’s on the roof, four flights above him.

Matt’s heart stops beating for entire seconds at the sound of his name, and just as it’s thinking about starting again, Foggy speaks again. 

“I know you’re out there.” 

Matt freezes. He forces out every other sound but the ones coming from Foggy's bedroom, but Foggy doesn't move. He's still and waiting. Matt doesn’t move a muscle for the long, long minutes it takes for Foggy to give up. He turns onto his side with a disgusted noise and Matt runs away like a complete coward. 

 

He stays away for as long as he can. 

Which is not long as it should be, but that’s not his fault. About a week later there’s another battle in New York. Nothing at all like before, but more than a few civilians come out of it with broken arms, concussions. 

He tries not to, but he keeps thinking about how Foggy walks everywhere. Foggy sticks mostly to places that are not where the robots were concentrated, but he can go pretty far afield when he breaks from routine. Maybe he did that day. 

So he goes by. For seconds only. 

Foggy is fine. He’s watching Dancing with the Stars, eating something incredibly spicy, window open beside him. 

Matt’s relieved.

 

The thought that Foggy might have been around a battle has an interesting side-effect. Soon after Matt begins to have some truly embarrassing fantasies, things he would never in a million years admit to because they raise concerns he knows he’s never going to be able to dispel. 

Sometimes, on bad days or boring ones, he finds himself thinking of Foggy being in danger. Never of the actual danger he’s known that Foggy has been in. That’s still cordoned off and labeled ‘Handle With Care.’ Instead it’s completely cartoonish, bad guys in black turtlenecks and the roughest thing they do is shove Foggy down into a chair and tie his hands and feet. 

No real danger. 

Not even a bruise.

Foggy would be annoyed more than anything. But even the threat, the possibility, and frankly the gall that anyone would mess with Foggy? That would need to be immediately and thoroughly addressed. Matt would address it. 

He knows, he knows. He has a problem. All he’s thinking of is few swift punches and then he’d be able to say, “I’m here, Foggy. I’m sorry. Are you okay?” Say it actually to Foggy’s face and have Foggy answer him.

When he untied easy knots he could help Foggy get the feeling back in his hands and feet, feel the pulse throbbing in his wrist for a few moments at least. 

He doesn’t do Foggy the disservice of imagining he’d be grateful. He’d be upset, and he’d have every right to be. Matt doesn't fantasize about Foggy suddenly realizing the good that Matt can do. He just wants to feel it, the satisfaction of having actively kept Foggy from harm instead of telling himself he’s doing the most good by staying away. 

And he wants Foggy to let Matt stay until the cops came, just let Matt soak up actually being in the same room with Foggy for almost the entire average eight minute response time of New York City’s finest.

Nothing happens to Foggy. He goes to work and comes home and goes out to dinner and walks home after dark, and nothing ever happens. 

Matt’s grateful, genuinely. He knows well enough that real life isn’t a Dudley Do-Right cartoon.

 

Eventually Matt manages to get, keep and win a semi-important case. It’s not front page news, but it makes the Metro sections of the newspapers because it’s about the embezzlement of city funds. He hadn’t been able to prove what criminal organization was involved, but he had been able to prove his client was innocent. It’s the biggest thing he’s managed professionally since the dissolution of Nelson and Murdock. 

That night he goes out and gets kicked off a roof. He lands on an awning, and then on the sidewalk display of apples directly underneath it. That makes the paper as well. There’s a picture, apparently.

So the day is a mixed bag, really.

 

The next night Matt comes by and Foggy’s standing on his fire escape, arms crossed, hiding his hands under them to keep them warm. He's got his back to the street, leaning against the railing as he looks up at his building. He almost catches the movement of Matt leaping from one rooftop to another. His head lifts just a second too late. But he’s there, he’s fine, Matt will just keep going. 

“You’re a god damned cheater, Matt,” Foggy announces into the night. 

Matt stumbles and ends up bent over an air conditioning unit. Graceful.

He opens up his senses while he rights himself and gets his bearings. Foggy’s heart is beating faster than usual, he’s nervous or angry. He’s cold too, his breath shivers a little on every exhale. He’ll probably stand on his fire escape all night, if Matt doesn’t-

“Just come _in,_ you loser.”

Matt sighs. He lets Foggy see him coming. The moment he spots Matt Foggy drops his arms from around his middle and starts climbing back into his apartment. 

Matt lands on Foggy’s fire escape as nimbly as he can to make up for the air conditioner. Through the window he gets the first real impression he’s had of Foggy’s new apartment. Sounds bounces along a large open room hits tall ceilings. It’s a fashionable open plan, and the things inside it smell new. It's a nicer place than Foggy has ever had, a big step up for the son of butchers and contractors.

Matt can’t help but feel like he shouldn’t climb inside, shouldn't bring the past into Foggy's new beginning. But he was invited. 

“Well, well, well,” Foggy says the moment Matt’s boots touch his floor. 

“Look what we have here,” Matt finishes the old routine while taking off his helmet. 

“Can I get you anything? Water? Whiskey? Month old thai food?”

Matt shakes his head. He turns his helmet over in his hands, not sure if he should put it down. 

“Saw you in the paper.” 

Matt’s fingers grip the helmet a little tighter. “The trial?” 

“Yes. And the fruit salad.”

“Ah,” Matt says. “There’s softer fruit I can think of than apples, but I’m fine.” 

“Yeah, I can see that.” Foggy inhales deeply. “It reminded me of something I’d been meaning to say to you.” 

Matt’s heart pounds in his own ears, four beats. Five.

“You’re stalking me.” Bingo. 

Matt has an idea where this will go and it’s the last thing in the world he can handle. He rushes to get ahead of what Foggy will say next. “I just. I wanted to make sure you were all right.” 

“By eavesdropping on me practically every night,” Foggy says, cutting right through Matt’s equivocation. “You knew I knew that you were out there. Months ago.”

“How did you know?” It's maybe not the most pertinent question, but it's the thing Matt wants to know the most. 

“Because I know you, and I know you’re a crazy person who thinks rules don’t apply to him.” 

Matt's not going to argue that, but as an explanation it seems incomplete. 

Foggy continues, “And because my top floor neighbor heard you running across the roof all the time. She came and asked me to help her sue our landlord for not maintaining a safe environment.” 

Matt puts his helmet down and tilts his head up toward the ceiling. “She could hear that?” Matt listens and realizes that sound passes through the top of the building like it’s barely there at all. He frowns. “That’s pretty- I don’t think this building has sufficient insulation. You really could sue for that.” 

Foggy thankfully chuckles, one quick puff of air through his nose. “I’ll think about it.” 

“How did you know when I was out there? That night?”

“She mentioned it was a semi-regular thing. She kept a log of the times because she wanted to have proof. I saw you at the courthouse and it ticked me off. Then I just… waited until I felt something and tried it.” 

“Felt something?” 

“Like there was a creep watching me and I should close my curtains.” 

Matt winces. “I wasn’t watching I was- you could feel that?”

Foggy takes a deep breath in while raising his shoulders up until they rustle the end of his hair. “Sometimes. You were supposed to come in and come clean by the way.” 

Briefly Matt considers lying. He doesn’t. But he does consider it. He hates that it is always his first impulse, “I didn’t want you to ask me to stop.” 

Foggy sighs. “Do you ever think about how much you get to decide and how little I get to decide, Matt? Does that ever cross your mind even once in a while?” 

Matt doesn’t want to hash over any of that old argument again. It’s not exactly fair, but- “I had to know you were okay. I just. I have to.”

“Then why’d you send me away? Why did you tell me to go and refuse to ask me to stay? Why cut me out of your whole damn life and then visit me every night? Jesus, Matt, do you ever get tired of being so illogical?”

“All the time.” It sounds a little like a joke, the timing of it, but it’s completely true. 

Foggy is not amused. “Matt-”

“I couldn’t keep anyone safe anymore, Foggy. I-” he growls, frustrated, and starts pacing. He can’t go back, that year is always going to be such a huge damn mistake. There’s nothing he can do about it now.

“I fucked up, I know I did. But there wasn't anything I could do. No, there was only one thing. I could shift the danger away from you and everyone else by taking the big red target somewhere you weren’t.”

“And I’m fine! I’ve been fine this whole time. Absolutely nothing horrible or weird has happened to me except routine _stalking_ by my former best friend.” Foggy’s getting riled, anger bubbling up like it always does now when he spends too much time with Matt.

Matt stops pacing, turns back toward Foggy and plants his feet in order to take that anger. “I know that, I know-” 

“Well then mission accomplished, Matt! You got what you wanted. Why be so obsessed with making sure I was okay?”

Matt opens his mouth, ready to answer, and then realizes he doesn’t know how. Not when “I had to” apparently didn’t count as an explanation.

Foggy walks away from him, just a few steps toward the kitchen. He fills a glass of water. The scrape of glass against the counter, the faucet, a shallow sip, and a deep breath.

“I used to think you were so damn smart,” Foggy says. “I used to think, ‘Matt Murdock is a genius, and I’m going to ride those brilliant coattails right to the top of the legal world.’” 

Matt drops his shoulders, not interested in hearing this again. “Foggy, I never wanted-” 

Foggy cuts him off. “And you are brilliant. But you don’t make any sense at all.”

“Yeah,” Matt says. He scrubs a rough hand through his hair, “I know.” 

Foggy drinks a little more water and Matt listens to his breathing. It’s shallow and steady, until he pulls in a deeper inhale. Matt waits to hear what he’s going to say.

“I wasn’t going to ask you to stop, by the way.” 

“What?”

“That night, I wasn’t going to ask you to stop.” He leans forward, hands against the counter. “That was a pretty big assumption there, buddy.” 

“Oh,” Matt says. “Oh uh-” 

Foggy laughs again, but it’s not cheerful. “You’d think that after all these years you’d know I don’t exactly have a great track record with depriving myself. Have I ever, even once, held onto a gym membership for longer than a year?” 

Matt is pretty sure he’s lost the thread of this conversation entirely. “No?” 

“And I have ever, even once, actually given up whiskey?” Foggy rounds the counter again, the better to accuse Matt of being dense. “Even after the most heinous two day hangovers and bad idea hookups?

Matt feels very dense, indeed. “I don’t-” 

“Have I ever truly meant it when I said me and Marci were through? And yet you thought I’d just suddenly be able to quit you -- cold turkey -- and just live my life, free and clear?” 

Matt chest floods with a warm flash of joy. Foggy doesn’t want him to go, he wants to backslide. He wants Matt in his life again. “Quit you” he says, smirking. He’s ready, so ready to get back to how it used to be. “Sounds a little Brokeback Mountain.” 

Foggy’s heart thumps an extra, troubled beat, but his shoulders don’t slump. They refuse to. “Yeah, Matt. It does.” 

“Oh,” Matt says again. 

“Yeah,” Foggy says, sounding bitter. “It's a full on gay cowboy love story, dude, I’m sorry.” He sets his water glass down and rubs his arm, the fabric of his shirt wrinkling beneath his palm.

“You’ve got an impressive batting average with the people in your life, actually. Me, Karen, Claire. Probably more, too, a few baristas, court clerks. It’s how I know you can’t help it.” 

Matt feels a little like he’s been doused in cold water. “Please don’t-”

Foggy’s heart picks up, upset. “Yeah. I know, I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”

Matt ignores the apology. “Please don’t put yourself in the same category as them. As anyone else.”

Foggy’s stunned for a moment, stock still and silent before he speaks again. “The hell does that mean?” He’s hurt, tense and miserable, and Matt is so focused on him right now that he can feel the air trembling alongside Foggy’s arms, his stomach. 

He takes a step towards Foggy. “How many people do you think I ‘visit’ in a night?” 

“I never really thought about it,” Foggy says, voice trailing away as he turns his face from Matt’s to look out the window. “Karen too, I guess. Claire probably only every now and again because she can take of herself maybe better than anyone.”

“Wrong,” Matt says, shaking his head. “I’ve left them alone like they need to be.” 

Foggy’s heart picks up. He’s looking at Matt, hard enough Matt can nearly feel it, face hot like it’s under the glare from a hot lamp. “Why?” 

“Because I could. I actually could leave them alone.”

Foggy shakes his head. “You think I need more protection than-” 

“Stop.” Matt takes another step forward, coming fully into Foggy’s space. Foggy tries to stop trembling, doesn't quite. “Now you’re the one assuming.” 

“So explain it to me then.” His voice sounds a bit squeezed, like his chest is tight. 

“I could leave them alone because I haven’t spent years thinking I would see them the next day. I don't expect to hear their voice all the time. And I didn’t live with either of them for so long that I got used to their noises, their smells, their heartbeats. Being with them never felt so… quiet. Easy. Not like you.” 

Matt swallows. Telling the truth feels as dangerous as swallowing glass, but he has to. He has to. Matt’s been driving the both of them insane and Foggy deserves to know why. “I could leave them alone because they’re not you.” 

Foggy’s heart rate had climbed throughout Matt’s speech and it’s rabbit quick now, two beats every second. But his voice is strangled when he says, “Okay.”

Then, horribly, there’s the smell of wet salt in the air. Matt lifts his hands up to Foggy’s cheeks immediately, feels the tears there. “Foggy?” 

Foggy grabs his wrists to pull him away, but Matt’s stronger. He locks his arms but Foggy doesn’t try to pull them away after the first attempt. He just screws his eyes shut and tries to stop the tears from coming. Matt feels another six or seven slide down Foggy’s cheeks and flow between his fingers.

“Sorry,” Foggy says eventually. “Sorry, wow.” He clears his throat uncomfortably. Matt thinks about moving away but then Foggy rubs his cheek into Matt’s palm: rough stubble, slippery tears, and soft, soft skin along his cheekbone. He stays.

“You just- you did a pretty good job at gas lighting me into thinking that I was at the very bottom of your priority list, Matt.” Foggy’s throat closes again, breaking on Matt’s name.

“I’m sorry.” He can’t say that he didn’t mean to make Foggy feel that way because he did. He meant to make the break as clean as possible. “You’re not. You never were. I didn’t know what else to do.” 

Foggy nods and Matt’s fingertips sing with the varied textures of his face again. He wants to touch Foggy’s face the right way, the long way. It’d be the first time since college. He wants to know all the ways he’s changed since then, but Foggy pats his wrists lightly, finished. Matt reluctantly lets go. 

Foggy’s heartbeat has slowed down considerably. Crying usually does that to people. “Are you okay?” Matt asks anyway. 

“Yeah, sure.” He sniffs, turns around and grabs a paper towel from a roll sitting on his counter. “I mean it’s nice to feel important, you know?” 

“You’re so important,” Matt says and winces because wow, that’s trite. He means it with every fiber of his being but it still sounds trite. 

Foggy’s laugh is muffled by the paper towel he’s blowing his nose in, but Matt can tell it’s completely sincere. “We’re such fucking losers, Matt.” 

Matt smiles, shows his teeth and huffs out a little laugh of his own. It feels like his first real smile in months of pretending. 

Foggy sighs, soft and a little pained. “I can’t believe you’re as platonically in love with me as I am romantically in love with you.” 

Matt’s smile, as it often happens, is short-lived. It drops from his face when he repeats, “Platonically?”

“Mm hm,” Foggy hums, sounding tired. “I mean, I get it. There are pre-set limits to what people can be attracted to. It’s fine. We’ll get best friend married -- again by the way, we’ve already done it once -- and just have an open relationship. I’ll expect flowers on our anniversary, though. Which really we should celebrate as tonight now. It’s after midnight, right?” 

Foggy is babbling. He does that when there are things he wants to cover up and ignore. 

“Stop, stop,” Matt says, scrambling to uncover it again. He reaches out, more blindly than he needs to considering his abilities, and grabs Foggy’s shoulder. “Come here.”

“Matt,” Foggy says, a warning. He’s stubbornly refusing to sway closer to Matt, his face turned firmly away. “I love you, but I can only take so much in one night.” 

“Look at me,” Matt begs. “Foggy, just look at me.” The air in the room moves and Foggy’s hair brushes his shoulders as he exhales and Matt stitches together, so carefully, an idea of where his mouth is. 

He kisses Foggy, aims more or less true and kisses him. Foggy startles, clearly not expecting it, but Matt holds on and maybe Foggy’s right. Maybe Matt doesn't let him decide enough but it’s because Foggy makes him so desperate. He panics every time Foggy is at stake. He’s not proud of it, but he's going to have to start facing this head on. 

So that they can have this. Because they can have this.

Matt readjusts the kiss by the smallest degrees, gets properly centered and opens his mouth to just barely bite Foggy’s lower lip. 

Foggy shivers -- he’s been trembling all night, from the cold, from the nerves -- but this is a different kind of shiver. A good one. A great one. Matt does it again. 

Foggy’s hand lands suddenly on Matt’s chest, sits there a second then curls into a fist and thumps it against him. It’s soft blow, Matt barely feels it through the kevlar, but he does pull back. 

“What the fuck,” Foggy blurts. “What the fuck?” And Matt has a second to worry that he’s done something wrong before Foggy thumps his chest again, harder, then immediately grabs Matt’s neck to pull him back. 

He gets to taste Foggy this time: copper and chlorine from the water he’d drunk, a sandwich from hours ago, whiskey from not very long ago at all. Foggy tastes as familiar and safe as he smells. Matt can’t get enough of it.

Foggy’s hands push up his neck and into Matt’s hair, setting off all kinds of shuddery chain reactions across Matt’s nerves. He knows what falling off a building feels like and this feels almost exactly like it. Untethered. He backs Foggy up against the kitchen counter to ground himself, braces one hand on the sturdy marble counter while the other grips Foggy’s shirt and presses on the small of his back. He presses their hips together slowly, every point of contact of Foggy’s body against his feels like a lifeline to hold onto. 

Matt feels both feet back on the ground and starts making plans. Plans that involve nudging Foggy’s legs apart and settling between them. Foggy groans fantastically, but also breaks the kiss, moves his head back, lets his hands fall away setting Matt loose when that’s the last thing he wants.

“Matt.” He’s hoarse and winded like he’s run up a flight of stairs. He grips the edge of the counter behind him. “Matt.” 

He tries to follow the sound back to Foggy’s mouth but Foggy ducks his head. “I need a minute. Just. I’ve gotta process this, okay?”

Matt nods and unclenches his hand from Foggy’s shirt, but he keeps it there. He thinks Foggy doesn’t want it gone completely. He feels Foggy look up at him and waits. 

Foggy lets go of the counter, lifts his hands until they hover over Matt’s chest, hesitating. Then they settle, open palmed, on the red chest pads of the suit. 

“I’m strangely so prepared to be in love with you and so unprepared to have you be in love with me,” Foggy says. “I mean, I know.” He stops. “I knew that you loved me. Before. When we were friends. It seemed pretty goddamned platonic.” 

“It’s less obvious than you think,” Matt insists, “knowing how to love someone. I didn’t- I grew up with a sad single father, then priests and nuns, and an insane blind man as my role models. I just. I tried to take cues from other people.” 

“Oh, that’s right,” Foggy says. “Poor Matt. Poor Matthew ‘Raised By Nuns’ Murdock, so innocent in the ways of the world.” 

Foggy hooks his fingers into Matt’s suit and tugs to show he’s not really angry. “If only I’d thought to point out that in general when you decide to entwine your entire life with someone else’s it means something.” 

“I was just so happy that you were with me. It felt like enough. It was more than enough for years.” 

Foggy holds his breath for a moment, then lets it out, “You weren’t attracted to me, though.” 

Matt shakes his head, “I was. Eventually. I’m not very good at instant attraction.” 

Foggy snorts.

“I’m not! New people are overwhelming. Too much… new information at all once. Too much to get used to. When- if there were girls- guys- _people_ now and again, it was- I don’t know. Usually they were just bland. They weren't too loud when they talked, they didn’t wear too many scented products, they didn’t make me think that much.”

“Nice, Matt. Very kind to your past conquests.” Foggy thinks about it for a while and Matt gives him the time to do it. “Okay, so it wasn’t instant.”

“It wasn’t, but it did come,” Matt swears. “And for a while, I didn’t recognize it. You were my friend, you made me laugh, I just. Felt good. And when it kept happening we were years along and I didn’t know what to do. So I didn’t think about it. I thought about… making Nelson and Murdock happen. About being what I am now.”

Foggy’s quiet. Matt knows he’s going over what he said, looking for the holes in the argument. Matt’s sure there are some, but he’ll argue this all night if he has to, he’s not letting Foggy doubt this.

“And my attraction to you?” Foggy asks. “It was just-”

“It was just as intermittent as mine,” Matt tells him. “It came and it went just as much. You didn’t exactly do a lot of panting around me when you were with Marci. And you never did anything, never tried to lead anything anywhere.” 

Foggy tenses and Matt knows he needs to explain. “And that was fine! Like I said, it was fine. I didn’t blame you. I was just glad I had you at all. I thought it would just come and go. Maybe get less and less over time. Maybe mine would too.” 

“So what?” Foggy prompts. “It would be just this thing we never got around to doing?”

Matt shrugs.

“Yeah, that’s the nuns talking right there.” He falls silent again. He’s probably looking at Matt’s face trying to get a read, so Matt tries to look sincere. 

“So Matthew ‘Raised-by-Nuns’ Murdock is attracted to Foggy Nelson.” Foggy sounds like he’s just trying the words to see if they fit in his mouth. 

“It’s true.” Matt smoothes his hand up Foggy’s back, feels the cotton shirt wrinkled where he’d taken it up in his fist as they kissed.

“A good Catholic boy with a six pack wants a lapsed Lutheran with a double chin,” he says, still just trying to believe the concept. 

Matt can’t really see double chins and doesn’t care about them. “You can convert if it worries you. Father Lantom will teach you the Catechism. He’ll be thrilled.” 

“Matt-” Foggy says, annoyed.

“You said you wanted a minute, I’m giving it to you.” He leans in, deciding exactly how to make his case. “But before you asked for that minute I thinking I should to try and get you off through your jeans so that I wouldn’t be so impatient when I got you undressed.”

Foggy’s heartbeat jump starts and runs away. There. Matt’s glad that he gets it. 

“If I could feel you wanting it badly, smell it on you, I didn’t think I’d be able to slow down,” he adds just to kill the last bit of doubt.

Foggy tries to exhale silently, but Matt feels the air move. “Still need a minute?” 

“I need a million minutes,” Foggy snaps. “Ugh, we haven’t even talked about the Daredevil shit.” 

Matt feels his same old defenses rear up, and he doesn’t want to lose this yet, the warm feeling of being something Foggy wants, something Foggy can have. “We will. Probably every day.”

“You bet your ass we will,” Foggy promises and if it’s a never-ending argument that’s fine with Matt. It means that Foggy will always have a reason to stay and Matt’s not going to take it from him again. “Starting tomorrow, you just wait.” 

Matt smiles his relief. “And until then?”

Foggy tugs at Matt’s belt, “You know exactly what.” 

He pulls Matt along as he leaves the kitchen, and steers him around the living room furniture. They’re right in front of the bedroom when Foggy stops and turns. 

“Actually, you know what, just one thing. I want to make sure you know that you’ve really fucked yourself over here, Matt. Because the next time you lie to me, and I have to dramatically call you an asshole and leave to cool off? You’re going to know -- for a _fact_ \-- how enthusiastically I could be sucking your stupid dick if you hadn’t just fucked up.” 

Matt’s not really able to handle all that. He tries. “I’m not going to- it’s not _stupid._ ” And fails.

“It will be if you lie to me again.” Foggy says with heat that’s more arousal than anger. Foggy tugs Matt’s belt again, leading him over the threshold into his bedroom. “C’mon, catholic boy, time to show me that six pack.” 

Matt doesn’t let himself hesitate. Just takes a deep breath and pulls at the straps, crosses his arms, grabs the hem, and lifts. He hears a heart beating faster.

“Fuck,” Foggy drags out the word for emphasis. “I wasn’t ready.” 

“You’ve seen me before,” Matt reaches and grips Foggy’s biceps to bring him closer. It’s not very smoothly executed by either of them, unfortunately. They kind of trip into each other, but at least Foggy stays pressed against him.

“Yeah.” Foggy’s fingertips brush over Matt’s stomach. It jumps under them, ticklish, so Foggy presses his hot palms flat, slides them up and then down. “Lately while wanting to strangle you though. Now I can...” He trails off, more intent on touching Matt than finishing sentences. 

“You can,” Matt agrees. An open ended contract. No penalties. 

“It’s weird, right?” Foggy‘s hands keep moving, over and back again on Matt’s skin, like he’s trying to get used to it. He’s so much closer than he usually is, warmer, louder. They’ve never really been quite this close before. 

It’s a lot, weird and good in equal measures, there’s no reason not to admit it. “Yeah.” The longer they’ve talked since they kissed, the stranger it’s started to feel and Matt can’t really say why. He was so ready just moments before and now they’re dawdling, the both of them. 

Foggy’s hands come back to just above Matt’s belt and stay there. “It’s almost like the ‘just friends’ versions of us woke up and are trying to take over the driver’s seat again.”

It’s exactly like that, Matt realizes. There are long held habits that were safe, ways to touch Foggy, to be near him that left things undisturbed, and Matt wants to fall back on the safety of that routine. It’s a relief to be able to name the feeling. Foggy’s always been so good at that.

Matt takes the gratitude and applies it, follows the line of Foggy’s arm to his shoulder, his neck then cups the back of his head. Kisses him. Foggy falls right into it, opens his mouth while his fingers curl under the belt into Matt’s waistband. The tips of his index fingers find the line of Matt’s pubic hair, and there’s the heat again, the impatience. 

It doesn’t entirely go away, the surreal feeling, but it’s less oppressive. He also has a perfect distraction in Foggy’s hair. Matt had always kept it off limits to himself, had always avoided putting his hands any higher than Foggy’s shoulder. He heard it all the time though, Foggy tosses his hair around constantly. Matt’s basically memorized the rustle and slide of it, and he’d always had complete confidence that if he got his hands into it, it would be soft. It is. Foggy‘s hair slides through his fingers like weightless silk. 

Matt’s probably never going to stop touching it now. Foggy will never go another day without getting a hair out of place because Matt’s going to find ways to comb his fingers through it again and again. And later, when he has more plausible deniability if it doesn’t work out, he’s going to find out if Foggy likes to have it pulled a little. 

God, he hopes Foggy does.

Just thinking about it ups the temperature in the room, and he grabs the back of Foggy’s shirt to tug it free. And since when did Foggy tuck his button-downs into his jeans? He needs to tease Foggy about how corporate that is later, the “I’m the cool boss”-ness of it. 

Later though, when he’s not finding with delight all the skin Matt’s never allowed himself to touch before. He pushes his hands up Foggy’s spine. It’s plush, a little bit of softness everywhere, but underneath that is a strong, straight back. And Foggy’s running so hot, skin burning like a fever wherever Matt touches him. Matt’s getting impatient like he knew he would. They both need to be wearing less clothes.

He slips his hands around to Foggy’s stomach to find the buttons of his shirt and he’s surprised when Foggy tries to stop him. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Foggy gasps. But he’s not apologizing for accidentally trying to hide, he’s apologizing for meaning it. “I just-”

Matt shakes his head, “Don’t. Don’t.” There doesn’t need to be any of that. He already knows the dimensions of Foggy’s body, loves them, wants to feel them.

“I know exactly who you are,” Matt says. Foggy Nelson, his best friend, the one he basically married in a bar over a cocktail napkin. “I didn’t overlook anything. There’s nothing to overlook.”

“Strange choice of words for a blind man,” Foggy murmurs, but he’s calmer. He grips Matt a little tighter in his arms. “I don’t normally- I was just literally thinking about how there’s nothing extra on you at all and then,” he sighs. “Freaked.”

Matt puts his hand up to the collar of Foggy’s shirt and finds the top button. It’s a well-made shirt, better than Foggy used to wear. One tug in the right place and the button slips free. Again, and again, and again. Matt listens to the sound of Foggy’s breathing and hopes that the quickness of it is a good thing. 

Foggy shrugs his shirt off when the last button is opened, doesn’t hesitate. Matt gets back to exploring the solidity of Foggy’s body, enjoying how it’s wrapped in an abundant softness and smooth, unbroken skin. Foggy doesn’t hide from him again, he pushes into him, gets shameless and grabs Matt’s ass and squeezes.

“Your stupid ass,” Foggy says, like he isn’t currently using it as the handle he needs to grind his hips against Matt’s. 

“Why is everything of mine stupid?” Matt moves his hips so that their erections align and roll over each other. 

Foggy makes a pretty desperate noise. “Because it just is, okay?”

Matt laughs and does it again. Foggy makes the same noise again but better. 

He assumes the wide flat surface in front him absorbing most sound is the bed and walks Foggy backwards toward it. This would all definitely be better on a bed. Foggy sits when the back of his calves hit the edge of mattress. Matt would follow but they have belts, shoes, socks, too many things on that have no business being on the bed with them. They can each take care of their own things faster, so they do, racing to get them off. 

Matt hears the shifting of Foggy’s weight on the mattress, the slide of fabric down thighs at the same time he’s pushing down his own trousers. He’s completely bare and he knows Foggy is too when he reaches for Foggy’s shoulder. He wants to lay Foggy back against the bed, but he’s focusing on too many things. His perception of depth is just a little off so that his hand closes on thin air, and he tries to lean against nothing.

Matt straightens again to keep his balance and a second later Foggy’s hand is there. It grips his, steady, and pulls him along as Foggy scoots back further onto the bed. He guides Matt down to cover him and Matt presses against him, kisses him like he’s trying to disappear into him. 

Historically this is where Matt usually has a difficult time not getting overwhelmed, of not finding the ordinary noises of a human being in the middle of ordinary fucking to be completely deafening. Foggy’s heartbeat is thundering against Matt’s chest, but it’s okay. Matt wants to hear it, likes hearing the persistent drum of it in the background while he focuses on other things. Like the feel of Foggy’s body beneath his, the searing line of Foggy’s cock against Matt’s thigh, the plaintive noises he’s making in the back of his throat because dry humping is a great way to drive yourself crazy. 

They’re both getting desperate, grinding hard enough that it hurts and if a little hurt is okay, Matt’s game. He lifts himself up on one elbow and one knee to get his free hand between them. At first he brushes Foggy’s cock with just the tips of his fingers. All the all the nerves bundled there send shocks on down the line at skin so hot, so soft. 

Foggy’s hips hitch up desperate for contact a little more solid and Matt obliges, closes his hand around Foggy and lets him push eagerly into his fist once before he starts to stroke. Foggy pants beneath him, breath hot and wet when it collides with Matt’s skin.

Matt’s forward weight is on his elbow, but gradually he works one hand up under Foggy’s shoulder and twines his fingers through his hair. He tugs just enough to get Foggy to throw his head back and make a little ‘oh’ sound as his thighs clench. 

It’s good, and Matt’s so damn glad. 

And then Foggy laughs. “Did you just pull my hair?” 

Matt freezes, “Uh-”

Foggy throws his head back again, but this time it’s to laugh even louder. “Did I just like it?” 

Matt tries to keep it together, hold onto a little gravitas considering they’re both naked, but he can’t. He collapses too, tucking his face in Foggy’s neck to feel the raucous vibrations of his own laugh and Foggy’s bouncing off of each other. God, he’s just so _happy._

“No one ever did that before?” Matt asks when they finally stop giggling like thirteen year olds. 

Foggy’s trying to catch his breath, one hand on his stomach and the other on Matt’s shoulder. “Surprisingly, no. Never.”

“But you liked it?” 

“I did, Mr. Grey.” And Foggy’s laughing again.

Matt lets his head drop down on Foggy’s chest and groans through the embarrassment. 

“You could be nicer,” Matt teases, lifting himself up, “to the guy who’s about to blow you.” 

“I could,” Foggy says, trying to play along but he’s not laughing anymore. Not as Matt touches his hip and slides his body down. 

Matt slides his fingertips along Foggy’s cock again, studying the length, the thickness, the weight before he takes it in his mouth. Matt hasn't been with that many guys, but he’s always liked this, the easy slide of soft skin, the almost meditative rhythm, learning by taste alone what someone likes. And Foggy likes. He's salty tart with precum and making these sweet little overwhelmed noises. 

“The way you look,” he says, sounding wrecked. 

Matt can only assume, but it still makes heat bloom along the back of his neck. He looks hungry maybe, as hungry as he feels trying to open his throat to get Foggy deeper into it. He lowers his mouth again slowly, down, down until he can feel he’s reached his limit. He pauses to take a deep breath through his nose and nudges just past it. 

Foggy rewards him with a whispered, “Oh.” 

Matt lifts his head up and then does it again.

“Matt,” Foggy says his name in a breathless warning. “I’m really kind of close.” 

Matt pulls his mouth up slowly from the base, and Foggy whines. “Did you want to fuck?”

It seems to catch Foggy off guard. “What?” 

Matt moves his fist over Foggy’s cock, wet skin slipping easily through it. “We can like this or-” 

“Yes, yes. Of course, I want to fuck you. I think extensively about fucking you a lot more than I care to admit and now you’re just-” Foggy stops himself, takes a deep breath. 

He touches Matt’s shoulder, “Come here.” Gripping Matt’s bicep he pulls Matt back up to him, kisses him and Matt realizes his own lips are swollen, skin stretched hotter and thinner across them.

Foggy pushes him to until he lays back on the bed, so Foggy can get to his knees and reach for the nightstand. Matt listens to the rattle of items in the drawer until Foggy finds what he’s look for, then the crinkle and tear of condom wrapper, the muffled sound of a small plastic bottle tossed onto the sheets. 

Foggy hooks a hand under Matt’s knee, pushing Matt’s leg up and over, exposing him. He rubs his palm over Matt’s inner thigh, then wraps it around Matt’s cock. He strokes a few times, sure grip and soft pressure before he slips down to cup Matt’s balls, rolls them in his palm. Foggy presses his thumb back behind them, presses until Matt’s hips jump up and work in a small, oversensitive circle. From there he traces back and back, slipping lightly up between the cheeks of Matt’s ass. Foggy’s hand is following his eyes, Matt realizes. Foggy’s drinking him in.

Foggy leans over and flips up the cap of the lube and gets his fingers wet. When they press back against Matt, they don’t tease. He pushes his index finger inside and gives Matt the pleasant burn he was expecting. Matt breaks out in a light sweat and push back for more.

He’d thought Foggy might need to be goaded, or at least assured that Matt didn’t exactly go through life wanting it gentle. But Foggy knows it without needing to be told. As soon as Matt’s gotten used to one, Foggy pushes in a second, his other hand stroking Matt’s cock to provide a counterpoint to the stretch that makes Matt hiss. 

Matt smiles and he thinks it might be one of his more vicious ones. He’s overheard Marci pronouncing Foggy a world class fuck, and now Matt knows he is. At the time Matt tried to be glad to confirm that Marci was good for Foggy’s confidence, but if he hadn’t been jealous he had been curious. Was it good humor? Was it technique? How he was hung? Now he knows, knows for _sure_ ; it’s all of it, everything.

Three fingers worked in, Foggy leans down and starts to blow him and Matt starts to come more than a little undone. Enthusiastic works as a descriptor but dedication is more apt. Not manic energy, but pure concentration as he completely undoes Matt. Lips, tongue and his left hand work in tandem to make Matt moan while Foggy’s right hand opens him with steady, persistent pressure.

Matt can’t really take anymore. “Can we? Foggy, I can’t-” 

Matt slips free from Foggy’s mouth. Foggy looks up. “You want it now?” 

Matt nods his head, shuddering as he tries to collect his self-control. 

Foggy tests him, slides his fingers out entirely then back in and watches for something on Matt’s face. Then kisses him again, hard and quick, when Matt starts to beg, and turns him over.

Matt practically shivers through the anticipation of hearing the condom being torn open, the sound of Foggy slicking himself. It still manages to startle him when Foggy takes his hip, and the head of his cock drags up Matt’s thigh. Foggy fucks in with shallow thrusts and doesn’t hesitate to push Matt back against the bed with his entire weight when Matt tries to shove back, too eager. 

Matt suffers only briefly in his impatience, each thrust driving a little deeper until finally Foggy’s slides in and hits the mark. It makes them both moan, for how good it feels, for how good they know it makes the other feel. The next thrust is hard enough to make Matt’s head snap up. He drops it back again as Foggy starts his rhythm, but doesn’t hide from the over-stimulation, he lets himself slip under it. 

Foggy seems to revel in Matt’s gasps when he hits the right spot, a little pause after each time so that he can watch Matt shudder. Matt listens raptly to the way Foggy has to having to take a second to take deep, head clearing gulps of air before he loses it too soon.

It’s been a long night and they’re both on a knife’s edge. Matt doesn’t feel like there’s any need for waiting. “C’mon,” he whispers. Then again, louder, “Come on, Foggy.” 

Foggy groans, still trying to breathe through it, but his heart hits the same rapid beats, not slowing. He gives an experimental thrust, measured and careful, but it’s no good holding back. Foggy exhales and lets it go, fucks Matt again and again, knocking the breath out of him. He gets his hand around Matt’s cock and brings him right along, right up to the edge with him. 

Matt cannot keep quiet, voice adding to the cacophony of their skin, the sheets, their hearts, their breathing. He sounds absolutely desperate because he is, Foggy makes him so damned desperate. For once, the desperation feels amazing, blazing hot and bright. Just like a fire it fills the room, consumes everything, all the battered surfaces and boxes of secrets in Matt’s mind. They disappear and Matt’s left with just the fire, sucking air into his lungs that feels too thin while his muscles burn, skin so hot wherever it touches Foggy’s. It builds and builds until suddenly he melts. Lets it all go, and Foggy gets his fist wet as he strokes Matt through it, rubbing Matt’s come into his skin. Foggy holds his breath as he comes, mouth open against Matt’s shoulder as he thrusts, hard, and stays buried. 

Matt lowers himself to the bed and Foggy follows, sprawls atop him. Matt likes it, the feeling of being covered and held down, though it’s hot and they’re both sweating. They part eventually, shift and clean up with shaky, coltish movements.

It’s almost awkward, both of them sitting up on either side of the bed and not knowing yet what to say. Foggy reaches for him first, circling Matt’s wrist with his fingers. They settle together and it’s fine. Maybe the ‘just friends’ versions of themselves are busy freaking out that they now know how they taste, how they come, but Matt really isn’t interested in their hysteria. It’s a better end of the bargain to trade habit for knowing what Foggy tastes like, to lay down beside him and drape an arm over his chest. 

Matt’s mind wanders.

“You listening to something outside?” 

“Hm?” Matt has to refocuses his attention back on Foggy to process his question. “Actually, I’m wondering what we’ll tell Karen now.”

Foggy hums thoughtfully, “Yeah, our office was kind of a weird little layer cake of desire, wasn’t it?”

“I would have called it a soap opera, but yeah. Thing is, I swore that I told her everything.”

“Hard to do when your secrets have secrets. Vigilantism, special senses, unrequited love, shameful hair pulling kinks.” Matt laughs. “It's probably hard to remember it all when it comes time to spill your guts.”

Foggy rolls onto his back, “If it makes you feel better Karen’s not going to be completely bereft of fucked-up vigilantes to have a thing with.” 

Matt cocks his head, starts to ask Foggy what he means and then the answer hits him. “Frank?” 

“Got it in one.”

“That’s… hm.” 

“Thinking of warning her?” Foggy turns his head to look at Matt.

“No.” He isn’t really, though Frank still irks him. “I guess I don’t really have any kind of right to.”

“You really don’t.” He taps Matt’s thigh with his knuckle as if he needs to bring attention to where he finds himself now.

Matt flips through his memories of Karen, most of them featuring a distance that was always there, that he’d always kept there between them. “It’d be nice to talk to her again.” 

Foggy tugs him closer, tucking Matt against him. “She’d love that.” 

The walls Matt built around his old life are crumbling, and he tries not to let that scare him. He'd made them as strong as he could but they didn't hold. It's time to change strategies. He rubs his hand up Foggy’s chest, reminding himself what was on the other side, and his fingers trip over an area of skin that doesn’t feel quite right. It’s uneven, too thin in places with tough puckers and folds. It’s his bullet scar. 

“You’re not the only with cool scars, huh?” Foggy says, voice husky and thankfully just fond. “I never really thought that whole ‘chicks dig scars’ things sounded the least bit plausible, but it is kind of.”

“What chicks?” Matt’s not jealous, not really. 

“Oh all sorts. Married secretaries in the break room who think I’m sweet and can't believe I was really shot, women in bars that hunt around for any guy who might have an arrest record. All sorts, Matt Murdock, as I’m sure you know.” 

He does. He traces lightly around it. “So this is where I ask you, ‘does it still hurt,’ right?” 

Foggy laughs. “And it does. Like a little bitch whenever it’s going to rain.” 

Matt’s stomach turns over the miserable little stone of regret that drops into it at the memory. Before the paramedics got there, Foggy’s shallow, pained breathing, Matt touching around to find the source of the blood. “I’m sorry.”

Foggy shrugs. “It’s my lame super power. I’m Barometer Man, able to spot pressure systems moving in from a mile away with just my trick shoulder.”

A second later, just a second, and Matt would have been out of last chances. He traces the distance from the scar to where Foggy’s heart is thumping safely away in his chest. One inch. Two inches.

Three.

“Foggy-” Matt may or may not be panicking. Because Matt made mistakes and Foggy shared in the consequences. That was why, that was why he’d had to go. “Shit.”

Foggy grabs his face, turns it back to him. He must have turned it away, “No. No bullshit, Matt. There will be zero bullshit while we are naked, I swear to God.” 

Matt is definitely panicking but Foggy presses their foreheads together and Matt breathes through it. Foggy knows, thank God he knows, to hold him down and keep him there. Foggy rubs his palm, slow and steady, up and down Matt’s neck. His lips are parted just above Matt's, and Matt can feel as well as listen to the air rushing past them with each inhale and exhale. His chest starts rising and falling to match Foggy's. It passes.

“You done?” Foggy asks when Matt’s shoulders finally stop shaking.

“Yeah, I, uh,” Matt says, shaking his head to clear it. “I don’t know how to do what I have to do and keep you safe. It terrifies me that I don’t know. I've got to-”

The panic flutters up again and he knows he must look pained because Foggy kind of croons at him. “Hey.” He grips Matt’s neck and massages it. Holds him down. “You’re mess, you know that right?” 

“I know.” God, does he ever know.

“You’re a mess and a genius and an idiot vigilante.” Foggy’s not mad. He runs his fingers through Matt’s hair, soothing. “And I’m not riding your coattails, not anymore. But I am going to follow behind you, so that I can grab you and pull you back when you go too far, okay? You have to let me do that.” 

It’s a nice idea, Foggy one step behind, ready to guide Matt away from the cliff. But only if he doesn’t think about how there will be people -- Fisk, Fisk, he has to deal with Fisk -- trying to throw them both over the edge. But Matt’s already tried to run, it didn’t work. He couldn’t make it work. Matt hopes… he just hopes. “Yeah. Yes. I will. I’ll try.” 

“You let me do that and everything’s going to be okay.” Foggy slips his thumb under Matt’s jaw, tips his face up for a kiss. 

Matt will never know why or how he thought he would make it without Foggy, but he’ll be grateful, so grateful, if he never has to find out. 

“Okay.”


End file.
